Can I add micro space between letters?

[Bernard12]

In a text using the font Liberation Sans with 14.1 pt in size I use in headers bold. This is no problem. In a header I want to user the word “alternative”. In bold the would be: “alternative” . In my browser this is good readable, but in LibreOffice it is not. When re-reading my text I get confused. In bold the letters “r” and “n” in “alternative” are so close by they look like the letter “m”. You can try this yourself in LibreOffice. This misunderstanding of letters causes confusion which I try to avoid.

Is there a option in LibreOffice to add a “micro space” between the letters “r” and “n” so I can reduces the confusion and increase the readability?

[ajlittoz]

The confusion is a consequence of the algorithms used in the font renderer. It uses integer arithmetics and this does not offer enough resolution at small font size: screen grid quantification is too close to font size (the glyph is drawn with a rather small number of pixels).

This should not be the same when printed.

If your document is intended mainly for screen reading this is a huge inconvenience. You can mitigate it by customising the paragraph style used for your header (do you rather mean heading? A header is a paragraph repeated at top of every page).

• go to Position tab
• untick Pair kerning so that the change applies to the full paragraph
• adjust Character spacing to enlarge the space between glyphs (something like 0.5pt should be enough)

If you don’t want to expand all the text in the paragraph, you can create a character style with the same parameters and apply it only on the offending words.

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[Bernard12]

@ajlittoz First I try printing and indeed for printing there is sufficient space between the letters. Second I followed your instruction for the screen and that does also work. Thanks.